Naming and shaming Facebook shoplifters- Reposted with mods

Copyright, funny old business...
Just because I'm feeling like a tinker, there's nothing to stop people from taking a photograph of a photograph, or is there? If someone wants to 'steal' your copyrighted image, instead they could argue that actually they got the image on screen and then took a photograph of aforementioned image.
I'm actually quite surprised at the amount of money that photos cost from equine events. Long gone are the days of film and processing costs (I appreciate the cost of specific printing and postage) but with digital, surely it should have brought the costs down? If you charged £5-7 for a print (to include postage) then I'm sure more people would be happy to buy one, if not more. You've taken the images anyway, surely making a smaller % but increasing volume would be a better way to work.

As an aside, I wish photographers would try and edit images, nothing worse than buying something that appears sharp, getting it through the post and it's not.
 
I'm not going to get into this again so One last comment from me.

In the olden days (how old do I sound) people bought a photo and put it in a frame on their mantelpiece/fireplace for all to see. Facebook is now the new mantelpiece. The times are changing.

That is all.
Bob
 
aquamarine said:
Copyright, funny old business...

I'm actually quite surprised at the amount of money that photos cost from equine events. Long gone are the days of film and processing costs (I appreciate the cost of specific printing and postage) but with digital, surely it should have brought the costs down? If you charged £5-7 for a print (to include postage) then I'm sure more people would be happy to buy one, if not more. You've taken the images anyway, surely making a smaller % but increasing volume would be a better way to work.

As an aside, I wish photographers would try and edit images, nothing worse than buying something that appears sharp, getting it through the post and it's not.
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There is certainly a huge amount of misunderstanding on the legalities of copyright. Costs are if anything going up and I could bore you at length with why and how. My standard picture cost is 6x9 for £10. At a BSJA/unaffiliated event recently we cut that to just £5. We sold loads more pictures, about twice as many. We took the same amount of money overall as we'd expect to take but our print costs were of course double our normal rate.

On Saturday I did a pony club event where first print was £10 and each subsequent print was £5. Overall verdict and response from the customers mouths and unsolicited- your prices are far too cheap for the quality you are supplying! Go figure.

We crop, edit and sharpen all our pictures before they go onto the web. Hence even our low res thumbnails look sharp on our web galleries, hence why so many get shoplifted.
 
I haven't read all the posts so this might have already been suggested. Could you run a black list that is shared between the photographers and if people are stealing just stop photographing those individuals?
 
Having looked at your website, what i think is wrong is you are rewarding people for having copyrighted images on there facebook pages. you will give them 10 free photos if they remove the copyrighted ones, which is just encouraging people to do it even more.

maybe you should give a free facebook photo when one is purchased(one per order) or do some other sort of special offer to encourage people to part with there cash rather than encouraging people to steal them
 
I wanted to buy a picture to use in an advert.

I emailed the photographer to ask if I could and could the hard copy be sent asap.

The same day "BEFORE" he would have received the cheque he sent me high res pics by email with permission to use in the advert. I then later received the hard copies.

This was purely done on trust, I was amazed by the helpfulness of the photographer and very appreciative of his trust and help.

Yes I could have not then posted the money etc, but equally he could have (and I would not blamed him) "blacklisted me" and not taken pics at future events.

There are honest people in all walks of life and all businesses have to face their own issues.

It is a shame if the dishonest ones spoil it for the majority.

If the core problem are with pros who NEVER buy these pics, I would certainly have a tea break when it is their round.
 
Horsemad12 we as togs know who treats us with respect and we reciprocate.

I quote an email from a customer received today:

"The pics of yesterdays' show are particularly lovely and I am struggling to choose! I wish we could have seen the pics on the big screen whilst at the show yesterday but my friend had her little girl with her and she needed to get home after we finished quite late. Any chance you could let me have a look at some of the following in a larger format or without the watermark please?"


Low res unwatermarked jpegs sent to customer, £50 order paid for this evening. Do unto others etc...

You never know when the pro will want the pic as he is or she is riding a new horse, horse is for sale or owner needs pix for whatever reason. On Sunday a girl who I have mentioned in passing as having 104 copyrighted watermarked shoplifted images bought 7 pictures from me! This despite me requesting removal of all the FB shoplifted images.
 
LadyRascasse I have yet to receive a single request from a FB shoplifter asking for their 10 free images. This despite me making the offer in good faith.

Several do want to be my friends on FB however.

What does that tell you?
 
Several photographers I have alerted have received extra sales as a result of the information.

At the end of the day I do think we are whistling in the wind. Sad but rue.
 
If you stopped taking their pics for a while, you would potentially be harming their business, like they are doing to yours and that may be incentive enough to stop them doing it.

I would think it was the easiest way of solving a problem and giving them a message that you are serious about what they are doing.
 
spidge said:
Aquamarine read this please and reply in less than 200 words:

http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=375625

:-)

xxx
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I don't see what you're getting at here. It doesn't answer the question as to why, with digital, thing's aren't cheaper. Ten years ago the major costs were, without doubt, film and (film) processing - aside from the software costs, where's the increase that makes the whole event more expensive than pre-digital?
 
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In agreement with SC :)

LadyRascasse said:
maybe you should give a free facebook photo when one is purchased(one per order) or do some other sort of special offer to encourage people to part with there cash rather than encouraging people to steal them
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Ditto

I understand the costs associated with purchasing equipment, travelling etc However the choice to take this route as a profession is made only by you.

If I were doing this as my full time job then it would have to be adaptable. I don't see what's wrong with people scanning for fb for the reasons others have mentioned. If I offered my photographs for sale then I would send a fb resolution/size alongside the print if the people wished. If it matters that much to you then send a version with "Photo by..." on it.

I have had people ask me if they can use my photographs of their horses on other forums or their website. I am thrilled that people think that much of my photos that they want to use them. It means a lot to me and all I ask is that they have the quote "Photo by Robyn Simmons" beneath it. Some people have taken images straight from my facebook. I haven't copyrighted them. They are photos of strange horses and if the owner likes the photo then they can use it. I don't say they have to give me credit, I figured decent humans will ask or at least thank me. Some do, some don't. If I were that bothered then I would place a copyright on them but those who have taken my images haven't been put off by the massive copyright on the official photographers photos. That is very disrespectful imo. However I do wonder if photographers were a little more lenient people may be a little more respectful?
 
xRobyn said:
In agreement with SC :)



. I don't see what's wrong with people scanning for fb for the reasons others have mentioned. If I offered my photographs for sale then I would send a fb resolution/size alongside the print if the people wished. If it matters that much to you then send a version with "Photo by..." on it.

. However I do wonder if photographers were a little more lenient people may be a little more respectful?
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I rather think the point is that some people want the immage and dont want to pay for it.I would guess its the fact that they dont buy ANYTHING that really annoys Spidge.As for being more lenient,I am not sure how they could be more lenient than at present. I think they need to make it a lot harder to take the immages,its a bit late threatening prosecution afterwards.
 
Mike007 said:
I would guess its the fact that they dont buy ANYTHING that really annoys Spidge.
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It's not quite that, it would be naive for any photographer to expect to sell every image they take. It's the fact that some people don't buy but still take the images which is annoying.

A bit like doing a days work and the boss turning round and saying "Thanks, you did well today, really liked your work, but sorry, I can't afford to pay you. Don't worry though, I'll tell every one what a good worker you are".

However, like MrF, I've had about enough of this subject, you're dealing with an irresistible force and an immovable object ;)
 
spaniel said:
Sorry to butt in.....what happens to images which remain unsold ie rider or connection doesnt purchase?
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Not sure about others but I've got images stored going back a good few years. Only recently sold some which were taken 3 years ago as the ladies horse had died. Hear that same story fairly frequently.
 
So would you feel morally right offering unsold images for use by third parties? I ask purely out of interest as I have heard of images turning up in calenders and publications without the knowledge of the subject. On one occasion this caused great distress but as the publishing had already taken place there was little to be done.

Eventually would you just delete archives?
 
Any time I want to display a pic on the net that I've purchased I contact the photographer and ask permission. To date I have not been refused. Its easy to do, takes seconds and avoids bad feeling.

As an I.T. geek (my job) I do often check security on photographers sites just for fun. I did recently come across a site where the photographer had forgotten to add any security or watermark. I emailed him suggesting he might want to edit the site. He kindly allowed me to lift any images I wanted off his site (of my horse) as a thank-you.

Photographers are nice people you know. :D
 
spaniel said:
So would you feel morally right offering unsold images for use by third parties? I ask purely out of interest as I have heard of images turning up in calenders and publications without the knowledge of the subject. On one occasion this caused great distress but as the publishing had already taken place there was little to be done.

Eventually would you just delete archives?
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I wasn't speaking about selling to third parties although this was covered in the other thread. In principle I don't have an issue with it, photos already get printed in this magazine, for example, without the rider's permission. I'm not sure what sort of distress it would cause (and I'll take your word that it did for whatever reason) but if I were doing a calendar (I don't ) I probably would advise the subjects first.

Eventually I probably will begin to delete archives but while storage is cheap I haven't really thought about it.
 
As WorMy said there is no point annoying your market. A photographer who I know very well personally says he doesn't mind the low quality watermarked photos being put on FB because it is advertising.

If someone has been to a show and didn't know there was a photographer/ didn't know who it was they might see someone else has been to the same show therefore see's there was a photographer and then visits the website for pictures and maybe buy one. Wouldn't have happened otherwise.
 
mrussell said:
Why not just get a printer and sell only hard copies at the event itself ? Surely that way you always get the money up front ?
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I know a photographer that does this, he prints off all the photoss he takes and displays them on the day, you can buy them there and then and if you don't you can e-mail him within a few weeks of the event but his website doesn't display images.
 
George Michie said:
It's not quite that, it would be naive for any photographer to expect to sell every image they take. It's the fact that some people don't buy but still take the images which is annoying.

QUOTE]

Thats rather what I meant, some people dont buy anything and still feel free to use /copy images.
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